Lesson video

Hi, there, I'm Mr. Buckingham and I'm so glad you decided to join me for today's lesson.

Today, we are going to start researching the world's polar regions ready to write our own essay, and we're going to find out lots of interesting information about what makes them so important.

I think you're going to find this really interesting.

So let's get going.

Today's lesson is called "Researching the polar regions and their important," and it comes from our unit called "Polar regions: essay writing." By the end of today's lesson, you'll have described the world's polar regions and explained a number of ways in which they are important.

Now, the notes you make in this lesson will be the ones you use to write your own essay, later in this unit.

So please keep them in a safe place and organise them today in a way that works for you.

If you're ready, let's begin.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

An essay is a piece of writing that explores arguments about a particular issue.

And evidence is information or facts to show something is true.

Research is finding out more about a topic or idea, using reliable sources.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

Again, to start off by researching the polar regions in general and then we move on to researching they're important.

How are they important for the world? So in this unit, we're going to be learning about a beautiful and fascinating part of the world.

We're gonna be writing an essay about the world's polar regions.

And you can see some images here of the world's polar regions.

We've got special animals and incredible landscapes that we wouldn't see anywhere else in the world.

So in this session, we are going to be doing the research we need for an essay and we're gonna be continuing that in the next lesson as well.

So we know that an essay is a non-fiction text that explores arguments about a particular issue.

And we know it can give both sides of the argument or just one side of the argument.

Here's the essay title we are going to use to write in this unit.

It is what makes the polar regions important and why should we do more to protect them? So will the essay we write in response to this essay title give both sides of the argument or just one side? Pause the video and have a chat to the person next to you or have a think on your own.

Well done.

Good job.

So hopefully, it's spotted that this essay title, this question is asking us to give just one side of the argument.

And that makes our lives easier.

We are being told exactly what to write.

So our job when we write this essay isn't to weigh up different options, isn't to say, "Are the polar regions important or not? Should we do more to protect them or not?" Instead, we're going to give all the arguments to prove that the polar regions are important and that we should do more to protect them.

And so by the end, our readers should be thinking, "The polar regions are really important, really unique, and we should do lots more to protect them." And here are the things we should do to protect them more.

So we are answering what makes them important and why should we do more to protect them? And we are just going to give the arguments that support that viewpoint that they are important and that we should do more to protect them.

We are writing just one side of the argument.

So in order to answer this essay question, we are going to need to break it down into some smaller questions.

What smaller questions could we break this down into to build towards the conclusion that we need to do more to protect these polar regions? Pause the video and have a careful think.

Well done, good ideas.

Here's some examples of the smaller questions you might have thought of.

First of all, you might have thought of, what are polar regions and then why are they important.

Because that answers that first part of our essay question, what makes the polar region important? Then you might have said, "Well, what do they need protecting from? What are these threats that they're facing that they need protecting from?" And then finally, to answer that final part of our question, why should we do more to protect them? We need to say, "How are they currently being protected and what more could we do? What would it look like to do more and why should we be doing more to protect them?" So let's think about these four smaller questions we've come up with.

What are your first thoughts to answer each? And we haven't done any research yet, but based on your own prior knowledge, what are your first thoughts about how you would answer each of these questions? Pause the video, and have a think.

Let them get thinking.

So for what are polar regions? Maybe, you're thinking, well, it's the North Pole and the South Pole.

For why they're important? Maybe, you're thinking, well, they have those icy habitats, we saw in those pictures and those unique animals like penguins at the South Pole and polar bears at the North Pole.

And for what do they need protecting from? Maybe, you thought of climate change and ice melting or maybe animals being hunted there.

And for what's currently being done to protect them? Maybe, you're thinking of people who are campaigning against climate change.

We know lots of people who are involved in those campaigns.

So these are our first ideas and answer to these smaller questions that help us build towards our essay question.

So of course, we can't just rely on that knowledge we've already got.

It's important to do our research before we write an essay, so that we've got the evidence we need to support our argument.

And that's because an essay is a non-fiction text.

We can't rely on our imagination or just our own ideas.

Instead, we need to include information that we've gathered through research.

And that should include a range of evidence.

Remember, that could be facts, explanations, statistics, which are numerical facts and expert opinions and references to official reports.

We need to get that evidence through our research to add weight to our logical argument to make us sound authoritative and credible or believable to persuade people that our argument is correct.

So can you match each example to the type of evidence it is? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

So a, says, because there's very little rain in Antarctica, it is technically a desert.

Now that because tells us, this is an explanation.

We're explaining why Antarctica is technically a desert, b, says, 98% of Antarctica is covered in ice.

That's a numerical fact, so it's a statistic, c, says, the Arctic Council says that people are already feeling the effects of climate change.

Now the Arctic Council is obviously an organisation that works around the Arctic, so we could call this an expert opinion.

They probably know something about this area, which is much more specialised than what we would know, d, says, Antarctica is boarded by the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

There's no number there.

So that's just a fact.

Really well done for matching those up.

So we are going to structure our research around those four smaller questions we discussed earlier.

And we're gonna start with the first question.

What are the polar regions? So as you might already know, the polar regions are the areas around the North Pole and the South Pole.

And the Arctic is the polar region in the north around the North Pole.

And Antarctica is the polar region in the south around the South Pole.

And you can see them on the map here.

So you might notice that the arrow for the Arctic in the north is pointing to an area of ocean, whereas the area of the Antarctica in the south is pointed to a continent, and that's a really important difference between them, which we'll talk more about later on.

So let's research more about the Arctic.

First of all, the Arctic, which is the most northern part of Earth of the globe is the area above the Arctic Circle, which is an imaginary line around the top of the globe.

And the Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean as well as parts of Greenland, Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Alaska, which is part of the USA.

So it has the Arctic Ocean.

And then around that, we've got parts of all these other countries.

And in fact, around 4 million people live in the Arctic, the area above the Arctic Circle, including the Inuit, the indigenous people, the people who've lived there for a very long time.

And so because it's a difficult climate, they will know many clever ways of surviving there.

But remember, these people live north of the Arctic Circle and not at the North Pole itself.

The North Pole itself is above the Arctic Ocean.

And we'll talk more about that later on.

So it's very cold, of course, and temperatures as low as -70 degrees Celsius have been recorded there.

And the Arctic also has a unusually long days and nights at different times of the year.

So during the summer, they'll have a unusually long days, and during the winter, they have a unusually long nights.

So it'd be a very different experience living there to what we might be used to.

Let's check our understanding of the Arctic.

Can you correct these incorrect statements about the Arctic? What is the correct statement for each one? Pause the video and decide.

Well done.

Good job.

So a, says, very few people live in the Arctic.

We know that's not true, around 4 million people live there, b, says, the days are always long in the Arctic.

No, that's not true.

At certain times of the year, the days are long, at others, the nights are, the days would be short, c, says, the Arctic is the area south of the Arctic Circle.

No, it's the area north of the Arctic Circle, at the top of the globe, d, says, no countries are found in the Arctic.

That's not correct.

It contains parts of several countries including Greenland, Russia, and many others that we've mentioned.

Many well done for correct in those incorrect statements.

So now, let's research the other end of the globe, Antarctica.

Now, Antarctica is a continent, it's a landmass, and 98% of it's covered permanently with ice, which can reach 4,500 metres in depth.

That's 4.

5 kilometres.

And it also even has active volcanoes within it.

Now, the South Pole, the very bottom of the globe is the heart of Antarctica and it receives almost no rainfall.

And if you receive no rainfall, then you are a desert.

So the area around the South Pole is considered to be a desert.

Now, most Antarctica receives six months of almost constant sunlight in summer and six months of almost constant darkness in winter.

So it's almost like having a very long day and a very long night every year.

And Antarctica is very different from the Arctic because it's not part any country, but scientists from many countries, including the UK, work there for part of the year.

So it's very different in some ways to the Arctic and in other ways as you can see, it's quite similar.

So can you match each of these facts to the relevant number about Antarctica? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good job.

So the amount of rainfall seen in the North Pole is almost zero, that's why it's a desert.

The percentage of Antarctica cupboard permanently ice is 98%, so very close to the entire continent.

The number of months of constant darkness in Antarctica in winter would be around six.

And the depth in metres of Antarctica's ice at its deepest point is 4,500 metres.

Really well done for matching those up.

So what are the differences then between at the Arctic and Antarctica? You might have spotted some already.

First of all, Antarctica is a continent, as we said, which is surrounded by oceans.

But the Arctic is the opposite.

It's an ocean surrounded by land.

And the Arctic ocean is often covered completely in ice.

And the North Pole is in the middle of the Arctic Ocean on top of water that's usually frozen as ice, whereas the South Pole sits on the ice above land.

So they might both be on top of ice, but underneath the ice at the Arctic in the North Pole, there will be sea and beneath the ice in the South Pole is land.

That's a big difference.

Now, no one lives permanently in Antarctica, as we said, whereas the Arctic has a population of around 4 million.

So that's a big difference.

And finally, as we said, Antarctica's not part of any country, but scientists from 29 countries, including the UK, work there for part of the year at 70 science base.

So those people would come maybe for the summer period and then go home for the winter, once they've finished studying whatever they're studying.

So how would you respond to Izzy's question? She says, "If Antarctica is land, but the Arctic isn't, why do so many more people live in the Arctic than in Antarctica?" What do you think's the answer to these questions? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, good job.

Here's some ideas.

Well, first of all, the Arctic does have land.

The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by land from several different countries and islands, and that's where most of these people would live.

The difference is there's no land under the North Pole, but there is land under the South Pole.

And places where people live that are included in the Arctic, like Norway, might be over 2,000 kilometres from the North Pole.

They're still included in the Arctic, even though, they're a very long way from the North Pole.

So that's something to bear in mind when we think about the Arctic and the Antarctica.

So let's do our first task of the assessment.

We need to record some notes for our essay, so that our essay is then based on faction information.

So I want you to make notes to record your research for your essay.

You are gonna focus on the first smaller question, "What are the polar regions?" And you might want to be guided by these extra questions.

First of all, "What are the world's two polar regions? Where is the Arctic and what's it like? And where is Antarctica and what's interesting about it? And how are the Arctic and Antarctica different?" And I'm going to try and include facts and statistics and explanations as much as you can.

And you might want to do some of your own research as well from many different sources that you'll be able to find.

You might need to rewind this video while you're making your notes if you're doing this at home.

Pause the video and have a go at recording your notes.

Remember not full sentences about the question, what are the polar regions being guided by these other questions to help you.

Have a go.

Well done, great job.

Here's an example of some of the notes you might have made, and if you want to add any of these in as you listen, then you could do that.

I've said polar regions are the areas around the North Pole, the Arctic, and the South Pole, Antarctica.

The Arctic is the area north Arctic Circle, it includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of several countries, including Greenland, Russia, and Norway.

It has 4 million people.

It's very cold up to -70 degrees Celsius, and it has long days and nights.

Antarctica is a continent with 98% ice cover.

It has the area around the South Pole, which is a desert with almost no rain.

It has six months of sun and six months of darkness each year.

And it's not part of any country, but scientists from 29 countries work at 70 scientific base.

And then the differences are Antarctica is a continent surrounded by ocean, whereas the Arctic isn't ocean surrounded by land and no one lives permanently in Antarctica.

Well done for collecting such brilliant net that's going to really help you when you come throughout your essay later in this unit.

So now, we're going to think about the importance of the polar regions.

Why are they important to us? So let's look back at that essay question again.

It says, "What makes the polar regions important and why should we do more to protect them?" So, so far we've defined what the polar regions are, and we've answered that first small question, what are polar regions? It's important to do that, isn't it? So that when we come to write this essay, our reader understands, "Oh, that's what you mean by the polar regions." But now, we need to say how are they important? And that will answer the first part of our essay question.

What makes the polar regions important? So we've done the research that will help us to explain what the polar regions are.

We now need to research that next smaller question to explain why they're important.

And we might think about their importance to nature, but we're also gonna think about their importance to humans.

So one of the things that makes the polar regions important is that they're unique in the world.

They are very special and very different to other places.

So one way in which they're unique is that they're coldest areas in the world and they're covered in ice and snow almost all year round, unlike many locations in the world.

And not everywhere in the Arctic or everywhere in Antarctica will be covered with snow ice all year, but many areas will be.

And in both polar regions, the sea freezes in winter and partially melts in summer, and that's the sea ice.

So when the sea is frozen, we call it sea ice.

And the polar regions have fewer inhabitants, people living there than other areas of the world with many areas totally untouched by humans.

And again, that's becoming increasingly rare in the world.

And finally, one thing that makes them unique is that no trees grow in the polar regions.

So mostly, we only see small plants like grasses and mosses and lichens, which can survive the very harsh climate.

So we can see some reasons here that polar regions are unique, they're very different to other places in the world.

Now the polar regions are also home, as we said, to many unique animals, like polar bears in the Arctic and penguins in Antarctica.

And we can see some of those here.

And these species only live in the wild in these polar regions, and some of them unfortunately are endangered.

So that's another thing that makes the polar regions so special.

Do you agree with Aisha? Why or why not? She says, "Okay, but just because polar regions are different to other places doesn't make them important.

None of these things help humans!" Do you agree with Aisha? And why or why not? Pause the video and have a think.

Well done, get it is.

Here's what Jacob says.

He says, "There are lots of different landscapes in the world, like deserts and rainforests and mounting ranges, and they're all important.

Imagine if we didn't know about pole penguins or polar bears because they didn't exist.

We should care about protecting all unique things on our planet, even if they're not helpful to our lives.

The fact that they're unique is enough on its own." So I should have been saying, "Well, they might be unique, but they don't help humans." And Jacob's saying, "Well, it doesn't matter if they help humans.

What matters is that they're unique and we should protect them because they're unique." However, in reality, the polar regions are in fact very important for human life on our planet.

And this is going to form a really important part of our essay.

So how are the polar regions important to us as humans? Well, because the snow and ice in the polar regions is white, it actually reflects back some of the Sun's heat into outer space.

And that reflection helps to keep the Earth's temperature down.

So let's imagine that we've got the heat from the Sun, hitting the polar regions, which are white covered in snow and ice.

And that means that heat is reflected back into space, so it doesn't stay in our atmosphere, so it doesn't warm up the Earth.

So that reflection helps keep the Earth's temperature down.

Here's another way, the polar regions are important.

In the polar region, the ground is frozen permanently, and we call that permafrost.

And that stores lots and lots of carbon.

And this layer of permafrost can be 1,000 metres deep.

So there's carbon in that permafrost, and that carbon being stored in the permafrost helps to reduce the effects of climate change.

Now, you probably know that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which might include things like carbon dioxide, are what traps heat in the Earth and leads to climate change.

So if you have less carbon in the atmosphere because it's stored in the permafrost, then that helps to combat the effects of climate change.

So we've got two ways in which the polar regions are helping to regulate our climate.

We have the reflection from the white surfaces that keep the temperature down, and we have this carbon stored in the permafrost, so it doesn't enter the atmosphere and doesn't contribute to climate change.

And actually, there's a third reason, the scientists say that the sea ice, that layer of ice on top of the sea when it's frozen, and that covers up to 13 million square miles of the Earth, that actually traps heat in the ocean.

So it keeps the heat from the ocean, from warming up the Earth's atmosphere, warming up the air and raising the temperature.

So we've got that layer of sea ice stopping heat from the ocean, going up into the air and warming up the temperature.

So we've got three ways in which the polar regions are preventing the temperature of the Earth from rising.

And we know that climate change, which means the rising long-term temperature of the Earth can have very negative consequences.

So we've got many ways in which the polar regions are helping us to avoid even worse situations from climate change.

So why do the polar regions help keep the global temperature down? Pause the video and tick all the reasons.

Well done, good thinking.

So yes, the ice reflects the Sun heat.

Ice doesn't store the Sun's heat.

But carbon is stored in frozen ground in permafrost, which prevents it from entering the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas.

And then yes, the sea ice traps the heat in the sea, so it can't go into the air and warm the air even more.

So three main ways there.

Really well done for spotting them.

So we just referred to sea ice, didn't we? Trapping heat in the ocean.

And actually ice is stored in two different ways in the polar region, in glaciers, which are on land and in sea ice, which is the frozen surface of the water or icebergs within water.

So here we can see a picture of glaciers, which are on land, and then some sea ice.

Now in fact, sea ice might often completely freeze the surface of the ocean.

So it might not always look like this where we've got a floating iceberg, but we've got some ice on land and some ice on the sea.

So the ice in the glaciers in the polar region, serves another really important purpose for us as humans.

All that ice on the glaciers in the polar regions locks up huge amounts of the Earth's water.

And if all those glaciers melted, then the world's sea level, the level of which the sea is would rise by 60 metres, which is a huge amount.

And this amount of sea level rise would, of course, flood huge numbers of coastal cities and islands.

And many of us would have to leave our homes.

So it's really helpful to us that the polar regions lock up all this water in their glaciers.

What about the sea ice? Well, the sea ice is a very important habitat for animals like walruses and polar bears in the Arctic.

And that polar sea ice also helps to reduce the number of storms, according to scientists.

So it has another really useful function to us as humans.

So we can see that the polar ice is helpful to animals, but it's also helpful to us as humans as well.

So can you match the different features of the polar regions, permafrost, sea ice, glaciers, and snow to the useful function that they serve? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done.

Good job.

So which one is an important habitat for walruses and polar bears? Well done.

It's the sea ice.

Which one reflects the Sun's heat back into space? Well, it's the snow.

We could also say the glaciers, but we've got another one for that, c, says, stores carbon in the ground, reducing the effects of climate change.

That's the permafrost.

And finally, glaciers lock up huge amounts of the Earth's water preventing that sea level rise.

Really well done for matching this.

So let's do our final task for assessment.

We're going to make notes to record our research for our essay.

And we're gonna focus on the second smaller question, "Why are the polar regions important?" And you might want to be guided in your notes by these questions.

"What's unique about the polar regions? How are the polar regions important for keeping temperatures down? And how is the ice in polar regions important?" And of course, try to include these facts and statistics and explanations as much as you can.

And you might want, again, to do your own research from different sources.

That would be absolutely fantastic.

So pause the video and see if you can record some notes under the heading, "why are the polar regions important?" Have a go.

Well done.

Fantastic job.

Here's an example of some of the notes you might have made.

And again, you might want to add some of these if you've missed them out.

So first of all, why are they unique? Why they're unique? Because they're the coldest areas in the world.

The sea freezes in winter, they're almost uninhabited and they have no trees.

So how do they help keep temperatures down? Well, it's because first of all, the snow and ice reflects heat back.

The permafrost stores carbon, which reduces the effects of climate change.

It stops climate change getting worse.

And the sea ice traps heat in the ocean, stopping it from warming the air above it.

We know also that the glaciers lock up water, and otherwise, the sea level would rise by 60 metres, and that would flood islands and low-lying land.

And finally, the sea ice is a habitat for walrus and polar bears, and it also reduces the number of storms. So we've learned here that there are many ways in which the polar regions are helpful to us as humans, particularly in relation to our climate.

They play a very big role in regulating the temperature of the world and keeping that temperature down.

And we'll talk much more about that in the next lesson as well.

Let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We know that an essay is a piece of formal non-fiction writing that presents a logical argument in relation to a command or a question.

And the logical argument developed step-by-step over the course of essay, supported by evidence and robust reasoning.

We know that the evidence may take a range of forms, including statistics, facts and references to expert opinion.

And we've learned that breaking essay question down into smaller questions can help during the research phase.

So we're halfway through that research phase now, and I hope you're really pleased with the notes that you've gathered.

They're going to be so useful to you when you come to write your essay because they're going to allow you to sound authoritative and most importantly, to persuade your reader that the argument we're making is correct.

I'd love to see you again in the next session to continue with our research about these fascinating polar regions.

Goodbye!.